


Remembrance

by cassanah



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-14
Updated: 2011-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-20 10:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassanah/pseuds/cassanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa will remember this day for the rest of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembrance

In her dream she found some hidden strength and drew up within herself enough to overpower the men holding her back. The Queen and Joffrey did not notice, their gazes drawn to her father as he knelt, slumped forward. She watched his broad shoulders sag before the cheering crowd and she knew he was already halfway to death. He did not turn around, though someone was screaming _father father_ , the voice hoarse and unladylike and undignified. She realized that it belonged to herself. But somehow, magically, no one noticed her state of freedom, and even as the executioner all in black raised his arms she ran to her father and flung herself over him. Now it was her own white neck and back exposed to the blade. The only sound was Joffrey screaming his frustration, and her father saying _no Sansa, go, fly love_ into her ear, voice rough with thirst and weakness, as he struggled to push her aside. None of it mattered. He was warm and solid and present and alive beneath her arms, they were both alive, and she laid her cheek against his own like she had not done since she was a child and held him, and whispered that she would love him and remember him and that she would see him again, promise, because there was so much still to say and she was sorry, so sorry, father –

Cheek stinging, breath storming within her, Sansa forced her eyes open.

“Don’t ever again strike her with your own hands,” hissed the Queen to her son, her eyes hard and shining as she separated him from Sansa.

As the Queen argued with Joffrey, she looked around and found that she was still being held back. So none of it had been true, and that meant father was… but no, the Queen and Joffrey had given her their word! From between dozens of legs her father was nowhere to be seen and then she saw that man, that hideous mute man wiping something black and wet from his blade –

Cersei gripped her chin so hard that she could feel each nail biting. “Keep silent, for your own sake.”

Sansa wiped her cheeks. The jeering look on Joffrey’s face as he turned away and smiled at the triumphant crowd – monsters, all of them – froze her and she allowed herself to go limp, her vision hazy and blurred. She must not think of it right now, then. Don’t think of him lying there in the dust, but think of home and bed and Robb’s smile and her mother’s fingers combing her hair.

Cersei looked at her for a few moments more, a slight line between her brows. Her voice softened.

“There, that was not so difficult. Can you walk?”

The feel of the guardsman’s hands on her was intolerable. She rose and tottered to her feet and did not look at the crowd or Joffrey or Cersei or what had once been her father. “Yes.”

“Accompany Lady Sansa to her chambers,” commanded the Queen. For the first time Sansa saw that she was pale, a murmur of a tremble at the corners of her lips, but found that she cared not a whit. “And ensure that no one may enter or leave it until I give word.”

“You said he would live,” said Sansa in a trembling voice, “if I did exactly what you wanted.”

The Queen shook her head slowly, her mouth compressed. “I had until a moment ago thought he would.”

Sansa could barely look at her. Was she lying, even now?

“What will happen to me?”

“You will take rest. This has been… a shock to you, no doubt. We will speak in private, later.”

“If he is to kill me, let him do it now!”

The Queen was still looking expectantly at her and Sansa realized that she had not spoken that aloud at all. She looked down, shaking with fright. Of course she didn’t want to die, that was something Arya might say in a fit of foolish bravado, only if it were her reckless fearless sister in her place, she would have in her grasp something sharp and gouging, something to make them bleed –

Cersei put a light finger to the bruise that was forming on Sansa’s cheek. Her gaze was keen and beneath it Sansa felt as pinned as an insect, wings flapping helplessly. A bitter smile twisted her lips.

“Go. Rest, child. We are not finished with you yet.”

If Robb or her mother or maybe even Arya were here, their father would be alive. Sansa blinked back fresh tears. As she did she caught Petyr Baelish’s eye, and he had on his face a solicitous expression that made her sick to her stomach.

Her father’s voice rang in her mind. _You are a wolf of Winterfell, Sansa_. She could still see her father’s smile, feel the scratchiness of his beard on her forehead when he kissed her goodnight.

Wolves didn’t cry and snivel. And they certainly were not weak and helpless.

She looked at the crowd and the grim faces of the noblemen who had stood by and watched and done nothing. She looked at the Queen, her beautiful face frozen and hard. All her vaunted beauty was but to hide a treacherous core. And there was Joffrey, the back of his fat golden head with the crown resting atop it. She heard his hateful, nauseating laughter and watched as he shook his fists in victory. She had made a mistake, letting him see her cry.

The crowd roared in her ear and the sweetness of the breeze fluttered against her sweaty skin and Sansa committed each piece of the scene to memory, even the light throbbing of her cheek and the slickness of her palms and the sight of the men cleaning up, pushing the body to the side – traitors command no respect and in death, do they not invite defilement? She turned away, for now at last she felt something rise in her throat and she bent over and retched on Cersei’s pretty shoes.

Sansa wiped her mouth and swore to herself that she would never, ever forget.


End file.
